Yet it still seems a commonly held belief in fandom Snape's only pretending to like Draco in order to suck up
This happens to be one of my least favorite fanon assertions. It's usually put forward by Snape fans who want to make him look nicer, but IMO it makes him far less pleasant than if he actually likes Draco, no matter how much of a prat Draco is.
It makes me wonder if the problem or solution is that slash only plays things out that are already in the text, albeit through sex. So it's not that OotP suddenly gave Snarry shippers stuff to build from, it's that it gave scenes to replay over and over through slash, while H/D had a book where half the ship was absent from the other.
Either I don't really understand what you mean here, or I don't really see this. I read a lot of H/S, but I don't really see any of it as recreating the scenes (except in the sense of Harry and Snape needing to resume Occlumency lessons, but I don't think that's what you mean). Most of what I see tends to involve the characters growing, often moving away from what we see of them in these scenes to develop mutual respect and attraction -- you know, things that might actually be *useful* for a relationship. ;-)
In terms of canon evidence for a ship, I think that there are two different types of evidence, or alternately, two different ways of looking at ships. The one that you state near the top of your post, as for Arthur/Molly or Harry/Cho, is evidence that these characters are in a romantic relationship or have romantic feelings for each other. Similarly, I'd agree that Ron/Hermione falls into this category (which I'll call 'A'), as did Harry/Ginny in CoS -- I'd say there was no question that was a canon ship, even if it was completely one-sided. The other type, B, seems to look more for evidence of the ship's viability, or the future possibility of the ship. It tends to deal less with how the characters look at each other now and more with how well-matched they are. I'd say that most Harry/Hermione evidence tends to fall in this category, for instance. The two don't seem all that interested in each other, but as H/H shippers point out (sometimes very effectively), these two have a good basis for future romance, perhaps much more so than either R/H or H/G.
So bringing this to the slash ships you mentioned, I think all three have evidence that goes into one or both of these categories. For H/S, there doesn't seem to be much of any type A evidence that I can see, but there's a whole ton of type B evidence. Most of this is through the Occlumency scenes; the two get a deeper understanding of each other and develop some sympathy. By the end of the book, they hate each other more than ever, but the new knowledge they have of each other may allow them to appreciate the other, once they get over their more immediate hurts. (You could also add in something about how Harry's overlooking Snape in trying to rescue Sirius means that he won't forget him in the future, but I'd call that stretching it.) For H/D, I think you could call Draco's apparent obsession with Harry type A evidence, albeit one-sided, even if Draco isn't consciously attracted to Harry. The fact that Draco sees Harry as responsible for getting his father thrown in jail could potentially be type B evidence, as a new sort of connection between the two. Each has recently lost a father (figure) dear to him to the war, due to the actions of the other's side. How exactly this will/could lead to the pairing is open to a wide variety of fic possibilities. I think the S/D evidence you cited could go either way, but would more likely be type B. They get along and probably share mutual respect. Anyway, that's my analysis; feel free to disagree.
Of course, there's also the point that you can find "evidence" for nearly any opinion you want, but that's a whole other topic.
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Date: 2004-07-06 06:15 pm (UTC)This happens to be one of my least favorite fanon assertions. It's usually put forward by Snape fans who want to make him look nicer, but IMO it makes him far less pleasant than if he actually likes Draco, no matter how much of a prat Draco is.
It makes me wonder if the problem or solution is that slash only plays things out that are already in the text, albeit through sex. So it's not that OotP suddenly gave Snarry shippers stuff to build from, it's that it gave scenes to replay over and over through slash, while H/D had a book where half the ship was absent from the other.
Either I don't really understand what you mean here, or I don't really see this. I read a lot of H/S, but I don't really see any of it as recreating the scenes (except in the sense of Harry and Snape needing to resume Occlumency lessons, but I don't think that's what you mean). Most of what I see tends to involve the characters growing, often moving away from what we see of them in these scenes to develop mutual respect and attraction -- you know, things that might actually be *useful* for a relationship. ;-)
In terms of canon evidence for a ship, I think that there are two different types of evidence, or alternately, two different ways of looking at ships. The one that you state near the top of your post, as for Arthur/Molly or Harry/Cho, is evidence that these characters are in a romantic relationship or have romantic feelings for each other. Similarly, I'd agree that Ron/Hermione falls into this category (which I'll call 'A'), as did Harry/Ginny in CoS -- I'd say there was no question that was a canon ship, even if it was completely one-sided. The other type, B, seems to look more for evidence of the ship's viability, or the future possibility of the ship. It tends to deal less with how the characters look at each other now and more with how well-matched they are. I'd say that most Harry/Hermione evidence tends to fall in this category, for instance. The two don't seem all that interested in each other, but as H/H shippers point out (sometimes very effectively), these two have a good basis for future romance, perhaps much more so than either R/H or H/G.
So bringing this to the slash ships you mentioned, I think all three have evidence that goes into one or both of these categories. For H/S, there doesn't seem to be much of any type A evidence that I can see, but there's a whole ton of type B evidence. Most of this is through the Occlumency scenes; the two get a deeper understanding of each other and develop some sympathy. By the end of the book, they hate each other more than ever, but the new knowledge they have of each other may allow them to appreciate the other, once they get over their more immediate hurts. (You could also add in something about how Harry's overlooking Snape in trying to rescue Sirius means that he won't forget him in the future, but I'd call that stretching it.) For H/D, I think you could call Draco's apparent obsession with Harry type A evidence, albeit one-sided, even if Draco isn't consciously attracted to Harry. The fact that Draco sees Harry as responsible for getting his father thrown in jail could potentially be type B evidence, as a new sort of connection between the two. Each has recently lost a father (figure) dear to him to the war, due to the actions of the other's side. How exactly this will/could lead to the pairing is open to a wide variety of fic possibilities. I think the S/D evidence you cited could go either way, but would more likely be type B. They get along and probably share mutual respect. Anyway, that's my analysis; feel free to disagree.
Of course, there's also the point that you can find "evidence" for nearly any opinion you want, but that's a whole other topic.